De Havilland DH.51

The de Havilland DH.51 is a three-seat touring biplane of the 1920s, built at Stag Lane Aerodrome in Edgware. De Havilland conceived it as an economical tourer around the war-surplus 90 hp RAF 1A engine, and it first flew in July 1924. It performed well, but lacking dual ignition it was refused a certificate of airworthiness, and rather than spend at least ten hours certifying the single-ignition version the company fitted an ADC Airdisco air-cooled V8 instead, which improved performance but ended the aircraft's low running cost. Only three were built, one of them a single-bay DH.51A later converted to the DH.51B floatplane in Australia. The third, built in 1925, served in Kenya as VP-KAA, the first aircraft on the Kenyan register, and after forty years returned to Britain. Registered G-EBIR and named Miss Kenya, it remains airworthy with the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden.